[jillybean]

Most of my carding is geared towards attitude and suit preference. I have never fully understood the use of count signals and when it applies.
Could someone please explain? Thanks.

[jdiana]

That's a really broad question. "Books have been written . . ."

Maybe someone is busily typing up a response, which I look forward to reading. Meanwhile, here's one helpful introduction (there are many others): https://static1.squa...s-the-count.pdf

[Stephen Tu]

Count signals are mainly used when following suit as 2nd and 4th hand when declarer breaks a new suit. They are crucial for building up a count of declarer's distribution, and especially for helping partner know how many tricks to duck (if any) to cut declarer off from a suit in dummy if the dummy may not have entries in other suits.


Count signals can also sometimes apply in the following situations (these are reasonably common, I might have forgotten some):

- partner leads a "powerful holding, please unblock honor or give count" usually K (modern) or A (old-fashioned) card vs NT from something like AKQT(x) KQJ9(x), AKJT(x), so that partner knows whether he can drop the crucial honor from opener or has to get you in to lead through. Not everyone plays a power unblock/count lead though.

- partner leads low vs NT, the J or lower wins in dummy. (partner knows you can't have an honor, you might as well give count so partner knows whether he can drop declarer's remaining honor). Some also play this if the Q wins in dummy, but this varies.

- partner systemically leads Q from AKQ(x) and you know it (because J is visible, or you have enough info from auction to deduce this), you can give count so he knows how many tricks will cash, as it might be crucial to switch if the next one will be ruffed by declarer.

- partner leads K at the 5 level or higher, you give count so partner can hopefully figure out whether the ace cashes or not. (At 5+ level one should be leading K from AKx, ace lead should be asking for attitude and denying K)

- partner leads K and your partnership has an "ace for attitude, K for count" agreement in general.

- in the long suit, entry-poor dummy scenario you might start giving a count discard early so partner knows whether or not to say fly ace early 2nd hand, or know your count soon enough if your card will be hard to read due to the spots you were dealt.

- you might generally agree on a "count on first discard" system, where you discard suits you are discouraging and give count in the suit. (As played by Richard Pavlicek)

[mike777]

All excellent points by the posters.
Our ultimate goal on defense is to know by trick two or three everyone's hand at the table.
Hopefully versus suit contracts,when practical, our opening leads go a long way towards this.
For example with even number of cards in the suit we can lead 2nd highest
With odd number third or lowest.
Or whatever lead conventions you prefer.

[mikeh]

Stephen gave a useful summary

When to give count and when not is definitely a very complex issue, particularly when (as jb does and as I do) attitude s generally the first priority.

There are ‘count situations’ and ‘attitude situations’ and it’s possible for situations to arise where one player thinks it is the former and the other the latter, with disaster usually ensuing. So, if you have a regular partner, it’s useful to discuss…and a Stephen’s post is an excellent starting point.

It’s also important, and a lot of players don’t seem to know this, to give no information at all on some hands. Thus many times I simply follow up the line regardless of length.

These are hands on which it’s apparent that declarer is in control…neither we nor partner appear to have anything they need to do…declarer is going to eventually guess how suits break and/or where the missing queen, etc is. I love playing against dedicated count givers…they almost never falsecard so it’s close to playing DD. Don’t be one of those players…try to figure out, as early as possible, whether this is a hand where partner will benefit from count (or attitude) more than will declarer. If so, signal. If not just play up the line (or once in a while, when you think partner can’t go wrong, falsecard)

There will be hands where you misguess the situation….failing to give count or attitude when partner needed it, but you’ll hopefully get better with practice. You do need to make sure partner knows this concept.

[blackshoe]

Two of my partners' likely response to "let's discuss count signals": "I don't do count". Looks to be a short discussion.

[jillybean]

I should have posted this in the expert forum. I don't look for or remember to give count, but know it's a big part of defence that I'm missing.
I simply don't have this level of agreement with any partners although I'm sure the 2 partners with whom I play Obvious Shift would prefer it if I was able to give count. I have to make better use of all that time on round clock, and think.

[jillybean]

 mike777, on 2025-January-15, 11:54, said:

All excellent points by the posters.
Our ultimate goal on defense is to know by trick two or three everyone's hand at the table.
Hopefully versus suit contracts,when practical, our opening leads go a long way towards this.
For example with even number of cards in the suit we can lead 2nd highest
With odd number third or lowest.
Or whatever lead conventions you prefer.

Against suit contracts I play 3rd/5th leads. However, it's often that partner has bid so it is no longer a count signal.

[jillybean]

After reading Stephen's response several times, I think I'm beginning to understand.
I've generally played K leads ask for count, K lead at the 5 level asking for count, A denying K makes sense.

The other leads are more obtuse and I'll need to discuss with partners.

On partners regular opening lead, we play Obvious Shift, after which all signals are suit preference. I thought this included when declarer broke a new suit but it appears there are times, although rare, when count would be more useful.

Perhaps I shouldn't be posting at 12:45am

[jdiana]

jillybean, on 2025-January-16, 02:22, said:

Against suit contracts I play 3rd/5th leads. However, it's often that partner has bid so it is no longer a count signal.

I hesitate to add anything further to this thread, as just a dim-witted non-expert , but if we're leading a suit partner has bid and we did not support it, then we show count. I think that's pretty standard.

Also, if returning a suit partner has led, we signal present count (i.e., the top of a remaining doubleton or low from a remaining holding of 3+ cards). Also pretty standard I think.

[jillybean]

jdiana, on 2025-January-16, 09:17, said:

I hesitate to add anything further to this thread, as just a dim-witted non-expert , but if we're leading a suit partner has bid and we did not support it, then we show count. I think that's pretty standard.

Also, if returning a suit partner has led, we signal present count (i.e., the top of a remaining doubleton or low from a remaining holding of 3+ cards). Also pretty standard I think.

You are much more switched on to count than I am.
When I lead partners suit I am leading low from honour, top of nothing, top of a sequence.

[akwoo]

I think, for learning purposes, you should not worry about giving declarer too much information. Just give count if it's what your partner needs.

Yeah sometimes you give up contracts (or at least tricks) because declarer could use the information better than your partner, but learning is more important. If your partnership is consistently giving correct count, then both you and your partner can consistently learn to process and use the information.

[mike777]

 akwoo, on 2025-January-16, 10:33, said:

I think, for learning purposes, you should not worry about giving declarer too much information. Just give count if it's what your partner needs.

Yeah sometimes you give up contracts (or at least tricks) because declarer could use the information better than your partner, but learning is more important. If your partnership is consistently giving correct count, then both you and your partner can consistently learn to process and use the information.

Well said.

At least for me giving suit length, odd or even, vs suit contracts helps me focus on figuring out declarers distribution.
In practice my pick up partners probably don't even notice.
😁

[mycroft]

All of these suggestions are good. For *learning* count signals, pick some and go with it.

When I am mentoring people who wants to work on their signaling, I tell them:

• attitude on partner's lead;
  
• count on declarer's lead;
  
• suit preference if the other meaning is known.

And then I discuss suit preference leads (which are more common than SP signals anyway).

Then they get to see how passing consistent, useful information to a watching partner who can count (if they help me) can help the defence. They also get to see how forgetting to do this will lead to partner (who is still watching) not getting it right.

Now, when I'm mentoring, I implicitly trust partner's signals, even if I know (or almost know) that they forgot. Learning that "forgetting" to signal will lead to bad scores reinforces "do it, every time, think about it every card" faster than "yeah, that signal is clearly wrong" and saving them.

If you listen to Mike, you will know that that is a massive data leak to watching declarers. And he is of course right. But even giving that information away reliably will make these players better when defending with a good partner than what they were doing before, and they will see it.

After that, the next step is to get them to listen to my signals, and start working things out for themselves. Hopefully after all of that, their partner is also being mentored by someone who is working on signalling, and when they get back to their regular game, they have learned enough of "using partner's signals" that it's still worth partner "doing the right thing".

You are clearly not at this point. You don't need to know the value of signalling nor do you need to get in the habit. You don't know when to count signal, and you don't know how to use count signals (which basically means you don't know how to count well. Don't worry about that, maybe 1% of tournament players know how to count well - it's another "I'm not a good bridge player, I'm a bad bridge player. It's just that everyone else is worse." scenario). But the pattern still applies:

• from the lists of count situations here, pick some that clearly fit with your current signalling.
  
• to start, be honest and consistent; and when partner gives you a count signal, pause and work out what it tells you and what that does to your count of the hand.
  
• while you are practising counting and signalling, NOTHING ELSE matters - not the score, not declarer play, not misbids. The only thing you can get upset at partner for (or vice versa, or upset at yourself for) is not count signalling, or misdefending because you didn't read or correctly use partner's count signal.
  
• once you get in the habit, look at all the other options - including Mike's "don't if it will only help declarer." Obviously, you will get that wrong sometimes, and partner will misplay; or you will think a case is "only help declarer" and find out accurate count was crucial; put that in the list of "lessons learned" for next time too. Now is the time to start worrying about the rest of your game again, and your results.

My mother the English major told me that you have to learn the rules (of writing, of courtesy, of society), because if you don't know them, you will *accidentally* break them and it will hurt you. But the thing is, if you know the rules, you can *deliberately* not follow them when that is best for you, knowing the costs. Same thing applies here. If you know how to count signal, and you know how to use those signals to count the hand one or two tricks earlier, only then you have the skills needed to know when it's wrong to follow the rules.

[thepossum]

At least Mike would not have a clue what I have for a while

If I ever had a serious count system it would be what was left after everything else going on and my memory

EDIT Why do people use the euphemism "occasionally give count"